Anecdote: I used to work with a woman whose (now ex-) husband was a wedding photographer for many years, and he gave that up to be a guard at the county jail.
Guess which job he said was less stressful, and in some ways less dangerous? :eek:
No, this hypothetical inmate was allowed to live in society regardless of his academic achievement- until he committed a felony. And he still will be released again after the full term of his sentence. The only question is whether he should be allowed out early; that should be earned.
I only visit prisons and jails to drop off customers. It’s not a job I would want but I suspect I would get used to it. Mostly routine but you have to stay vigilient for the times it becomes less than routine.
I’m beginning to feel a little better about this.
Last night we were texting back and forth. My daughter (a nurse) was in on the conversation.
He mentioned that he had to “bath the inmates in seg”.
I later asked my daughter about what that meant. I pictured him sponge-bathing handicapped prisoners. My daughter explained that seg is solitary, and he was just accompanying inmates to the shower, then returning them to their cell, one at a time.
I’m going with her version.
I worked in a county jail once - as a cook - and I don’t think it was anything like working in a prison would be.
like not nearly as bad, I mean. we were, however, heavily exposed to sugar, starches and trans fat 
If a handicapped prisoner needs a sponge bath, he’ll receive it from a infirmary orderly (who is another prisoner assigned to that job).
That’s true. Prison is no place to look for a low-carb diet.
The unofficial motto of corrections: “Our job is to keep interesting things from happening.”
Lotta jobs have real similar mottos. The goal is to put in your 20 years with only a couple of truly memorable days.
When I lived in my old town, I saw a want ad from a men’s prison in the region that was hiring RN’s - men only, to work in the intake clinic.
I mentioned this on another board, one that is mostly women, and one poster was so persistent in asking me, “But why couldn’t they just hire anyone and have extra security?” that I was tempted to look up that prison’s phone number so she could call them and ask. :smack: :rolleyes:
This is a controversial issue in penology. American prisons generally follow the principle of gender neutrality when hiring prison employees. The general rule is that our concept of equal rights means that we don’t hire men for certain workplaces and women for other workplaces. Men and women are supposed to be hired as CO’s (or other employees) on equal footing and then work in prisons with male or female prisoners without regard to gender.
This is not the principle in most countries. In most countries, they feel that prisons for male prisoners should have male employees and prisons for female prisoners should have female employees. They feel that having men guarding men and women guarding women creates a better environment for both the employees and the prisoners.
I’m thinking if you work in a store or a restaurant, you’d don’t want to brag to the boss about how you were able to do nothing all day because there was no business going on.
But when I worked in a prison, my boss used to call me up at the end of an eight hour shift and ask me how the day had gone. And if I told him nothing had happened all day, he’d thank me and tell me to try to do the same tomorrow. Other than a fire department, I can’t think of too many other workplaces where that happens.
I just “celebrated” my 18th year of corrections. I use celebrated in quotes because I didn’t realize that my anniversary had passed until the day after. I have spent nearly my entire adult life in this field, having started when I was 21, which was the minimum age then (it’s 18 now). For the last six years, I have been the investigator on the Warden’s personal staff.
Without giving examples and creating hard feelings, I’ll just say that there’s a fair amount of misinformation in this thread, which is an extension of the public not really understanding what it is that we do. If you have ever been involved in something that has made the news, you see quite quickly that they don’t know what the hell they are talking about. Add in the need to add drama to the situation, and the end product is complete BS. So, forget what you see in the movies, TV, and read in the papers.
My advice for the kid is to keep and maintain friendships and interests outside of work, and keep your pen out of the company ink.
You’re certainly our resident expert on this. Would you care to share your opinion on which approach really works better? Or at least offer some of the up- and down-sides with the US approach that you’ve observed in your career?
Plenty actually - because when you said “nothing happened” , you didn’t mean that you all sat around playing Candy Crush all day. You meant that nothing out of the ordinary happened. You still processed visitors in and out, escorted inmates around the facility, conducted counts -whatever a normal day is. It’s not the equivalent of a store with no business for a day - it’s the equivalent of a store that didn’t have any problems for a day. No shoplifters, no floods, the power didn’t go out, the bathrooms didn’t flood, the police didn’t have to be called because a couple of customers got into a fight.
You know what is interesting with this is that at the Jefferson City prison EVERYONE, thats prisoners, guards, and even the warden ALL eat the same food. This helps to 1. reduce contraband coming in and 2. Makes everyone feel they are in this together.
I also heard that being a good cook makes you less likely to get killed in prison because the prisoners want good food.
The murder rate per capita is higher outside the walls than in. And since there is a greater concentration of bad people inside they do a pretty good job of keeping them from killing each other. Your chances of getting murdered are low even if you can’t cook.
I know in the Bluffdale prison in Utah the prisoners work in the kitchen. Due to this the prisoners regularly adulterate the food with various bodily fluids and solids. As a result you really shouldn’t eat anything that isn’t prepackaged if you don’t want hep C or something.
I really can’t compare them. The two different systems are reflections of the differing values their societies hold.
On the one hand, limiting female employees to female prisons would reduce their career opportunities. Prison systems are mostly based around male prisoners. By cutting off female employees from male prisons, you’re cutting them off from the majority of the system. This would pretty much take them off the promotion track.
On the other hand, it’s true that gender mixing employees and prisoners causes problems. Male employees get in trouble with female prisoners and female employees get in trouble with male prisoners. Segregating the genders would significantly reduce these problems.
Why would they taint their own food?